


Don't Hold My Breath

by LiviKate



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BDSM, Bondage, Breathplay, Character Development, Choking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Impact Play, John didn't know, John-centric, Know your triggers, M/M, Painplay, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Sherlock didn't know, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 15:06:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiviKate/pseuds/LiviKate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is used to pain, but when a game goes too far, John finds limits he didn't know he had. </p><p>Triggers, people, know your triggers. John didn't know his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Hold My Breath

John Watson was no stranger to pain.

He grew up in pain. His father drank and beat him. His mother drank and was glad it wasn’t her meeting her husband’s rage. His sister drank so she could forget that her little brother was being sent to hospital every couple of weeks so that she could stay safe. 

John took the beatings, head held high. He even instigated a few of them, if he thought his father was looking a little too hard at his mother or Harry. At the age of nine, John knew it was better to endure the pain than see it in someone he loved. It scared him, the way his father got. It would’ve scared anyone. John would cry himself to sleep every night, even when the crying only made his tiny, battered body hurt worse. But the pain and the fear were things John learned to live with, accept, and eventually, overcome.

It was John’s repeat trips to the A&E that made him want to be a doctor. Broken bones, fractured ribs, lacerations, contusions, cigarette burns, no matter what it was, the doctors there could fix him up, and make the pain stop. John liked the idea of being able to take pain away from people.    John became a soldier because he wasn’t afraid of pain. In sparring practice, or hand-to-hand combat training, John was often the man to beat. It didn’t matter that he was the shortest; although John sometimes wondered how tall he would be if he hadn’t spent all his formative childhood years healing from his father’s assaults. John was solid and clever, winning most fights and mastering many techniques. He was relentless and strong, never giving up, even when things went beyond playful fighting and into serious, damaging blows. 

John took it well, healed fast and never held a grudge. Countless times in the war, John volunteered for missions he didn’t need to. Medics were typically not as combat-trained, and stuck close to their triage tents. But John was always out, unafraid of the pain that could find him. Every time an IED exploded, sending shrapnel flying, or an enemy combatant got too close with a knife, or when bullets tore through the air, lodging in flesh, John just grit his teeth and pushed through it, grinning as though he liked the pain.

It was one day in the desert, stitching up a bullet wound on his hip with no aid other than a mirror that John realized that perhaps he was conditioned for pain. He had been raised in a constant state of fear and agony. But it had made him stronger, in so many ways, like he’d built up a tolerance to pain and fear the way an addict did to their drug of choice. John was less affected, a better man. A good solider, not afraid of battle and more than ready to wage war. A brilliant doctor, who knew how bad it hurt and how afraid you could be, and who always knew how to fix you up. 

John never forgave his father, but he didn’t hate him. He wasn’t plagued by memories of his childhood abuse. When he thought back on it, the memories weren’t cold, but they weren’t burning hot either. He could remember what the hardwood floor of their house had felt like when his small, child’s body bounced against it. He remembered the way dust would plume from the plaster of the wall when he was a little older and his father wasn’t afraid to grab him by the locks and slam his head solidly into it. He remembered how his blood had looked, staining the countertops as he clung to them, trying desperately to stay on his feet, his teenage pride telling him not to go down. He remembered. But not often. 

Seeing victims of abuse similar to his own, at the surgery or on cases, made his heart ache just like any other sadness or pity. Seeing pain in these people gave John no pleasure at all. But in interacting with these people, he found that he was very grateful. Grateful to have grown up well, despite his circumstances, and moved on and up, not letting his past pain hang over him like a cloud. He saw people who seemed continually haunted by the things that had befallen them decades ago. And John was glad that was not him.

Pain had been a constant companion for him, but he didn’t think much of it. Didn’t hate his life for how it had started, and he didn’t hate the abuse for what it did to him. He was happy with who he was and how he dealt with pain. Pain was power, and John was proud that pain only had the power he let it. John controlled his pain.

Pain was an obstacle in John’s life, not a curse.

And when Sherlock had first twirled a riding crop around his fingers, John considered the possibility that he might learn to very much like pain.

 

 

 

It wasn’t sadistic. It wasn’t dark, it wasn’t evil. It was powerful. And if there was one thing Sherlock loved, it was power. He loved being able to take John apart; slowly, bit by little bit, or all at once with pieces flying. He loved the surrender, the consent. The gleam in John’s eyes as he let himself be tied tightly to a chair set Sherlock nearly ablaze. The feral grin that warped John kind, caring face, the smile of agony, as lash after lash marred his scarred and smooth flesh, made Sherlock so hard it ached. And seeing John, bruised, red, swollen and sweating, tied down, bound up or held back, and still fully erect and leaking for it? Sherlock drew it out, as much for John as for himself. They loved the endgame, sure, but it was the journey, the agonizing assent that made the stomach-dropping, earth-shattering orgasm that much more worth it.

And so it was with dark eyes and a fast pulse that Sherlock circled slowly around John, memorizing every detail. Every cord of tension, every fiber of muscle, that pulled and strained against his bonds, was meticulously harvested and stored in the room of the Palace built specifically for nights like these. John sat, naked and hard, tied at the ankles, knees, wrists and elbows to a chair, legs spread, completely exposed. His chest heaved and he smiled darkly at Sherlock as he circled in close behind him. Sherlock grabbed a handful of flaxen strands and yanked, torqueing John’s head back, the cords of his neck standing out harshly under the spotlight of the otherwise darkened room.

The light had been John’s idea, when it had been his turn to wield the crop, or cane, or flog, or paddle. John wanted to see every mark, every welt that he raised on Sherlock’s ivory skin. Sherlock quickly saw the merit, and the one, harsh, white light had been left on every time since. 

It wouldn’t do John much good tonight however. Releasing his hold on John’s hair, Sherlock continued circling his lover, taking a blindfold from the table beside him and trailing it lightly over John’s neck and shoulders as he crossed behind him. Coming to a halt before him, Sherlock slid one knee between John’s captive thighs, eyes gleaming as John hissed at the contact of smooth trousers against aching, engorged flesh. Sherlock leaned in slowly, wrapping the blindfold around John’s eyes, tying in securely.

“Safeword,” came the soft, almost imperceptible request, breathed against John’s face, dusting over his bitten lips.

“Hudson,” John replied, his hips twitching against Sherlock’s thigh.

“Good boy.” Sherlock retreated, John’s skin left cold and wanting. But the goosebumps pebbling John’s skin had little to do with the cold, and much more to do with the smooth leather of the flogger sliding up his arm and down his chest. John inhaled sharply as the many strands slid over and around his hard cock. And hissed out harshly as the leather struck his abdomen, wrapping around the side of his ribcage, leaving red, raised welts behind.

More blows rained down, across his thighs, shoulders, arms and stomach. John just growled and grinned, baring his teeth as his skin crisscrossed with lancing hot pain. The flog was exchanged for the crop, then the cane. Every mark Sherlock made was carefully traced with long, cool fingers. When he stroked up the underside of John’s cock with the end of the riding crop, Sherlock’s teeth suddenly sank into John’s shoulder, prompting a strangled cry and an aborted thrust. When the cold wood of the cane slid menacingly along the sweat-dampened curve where hip met thigh, a hard slap colored John’s cheek, snapping his head to the side with teeth-jarring force. 

John heard the sound of the cane clattering to the floor, followed by the sound of trousers pooling around ankles. _‘God, yes,’_ John thought, his weeping cock attached to his stomach by a line of precum. Once again Sherlock knee slid between John’s. He struggled fruitlessly against his many bindings, dying to close the distance between himself and his love.

“ _Sherlock,_ ” he growled, voice low and dangerous. Still blind, John turned his face up, searching for the full lips he loved to gnaw on. All he found was another hard, cold slap before Sherlock pressed himself bodily to John. The pressure on his stinging, burning skin was exquisite, and John used what little room he had to move to rub himself against the cool flesh of Sherlock’s thigh.

“We’re going to try something new, today, pet,” Sherlock murmured in John’s ear, teeth connecting and dragging.

“Blindfold?” John asked hopefully.

“Stays on.” John could hear the smile in his voice. He felt it against his jaw a second before he felt long, strong hands wrapping around his throat.

John’s brain shorted out.

No, no, he didn’t like this.

This wasn’t good. He did not like hands on his throat.

By the time he unfroze, Sherlock had both hands clasped around his neck, squeezing with the slightest, most terrifyingly controlled pressure. 

John struggled instinctively. He thrashed his head and bucked his hips as best he could.

“Sherlock,” He hissed, intent on expressing his distress without having to safeword. But any thought of that possible escape, any thought at all, was dashed from John’s senses as the finger’s tightened to a breath-stopping hold and a voice that was not his lover’s growled in his ear:

“ _You like it,”_ his father said, hands curling around his son’s throat. John couldn’t breathe, could barely even move under the devastating weight of the body above him. 

The body that no longer registered as Sherlock’s. The hands that were strangling him were not the graceful musician’s that he loved dearly and trusted explicitly. 

That was all gone for John.

All that was real for John was the crushing memory that flooded his mind, claiming his reality and tossing him back in time, to when his father would pin him to the hard, cold wood until he lost consciousness.

A purr sounded in his ear, followed by a ragged gasp that was not his own. This brought him back. This was Sherlock. Sherlock, who moaned into his hair as he ground his leaking erection against John’s stomach, forcing his head up by the grip on his throat. 

Sherlock. He trusted Sherlock. He was not his father. John was safe. His eyes were wide as John struggled to take the deep breath he needed to ground himself. He focused on the wet slide of Sherlock’s cock against his red and bruised skin, the shallow thrusts that had Sherlock breathing hard in his ear. Sherlock. Safe. Sherlock. Hard to breath. Can’t move. _SherlockSherlockSherlock._

“I know you like it,” a voice against his cheek, and Sherlock was gone again. His father breathed hotly into his ear, his breath a sticky warmth on his face, the alcohol clinging to and crawling down his neck. “The control. The pain. _The danger.”_

John writhed, twisting his face away from the mouth on his neck. _No! No! Hit me, don’t touch me, it’s worse. Throw me around, break my bones, but don’t hold me down. Don’t take my breath,_

“I’d fuck you like this,” his father threatened. “Hold you down by your fucking throat and split you straight through.”

John whimpered, a tear forcing its way through his tightly shut lids.

“Nononono, stop, please, stop,” came the gasping plea, rough from lack of breath and weak from the intense fear.

The pressure changed. Releasing for a moment, long enough for John to draw in one full, desperate breath as his awareness flickered again, reminding him that it was Sherlock, there was a safeword, he could get out, he could breathe and he would be okay.

 But the relief was short lived, as within a second the smooth white hands where replaced by the hard bone of a dark, furred forearm. Now John truly panicked, his eyes open wide but unseeing behind the blindfold, lost completely in the nightmare playing behind his bound eyes. And memory of his madman was gone, and John was thrust back into the terror of his childhood home.

His father’s forearm came down hard on his throat, cutting off his air supply completely. No matter how hard he struggled he couldn’t get a single wisp of air to his aching lungs. His vision was swimming behind the blindfold and the muscles of his neck were tight and burning, feeling as though he was about to snap, about to explode, he was dying, he knew it, this was it, years of abuse, and this was his death.

His hazy brain registered the brush of knuckles against his abdomen, and if John had the strength to retch he would’ve. He could feel his father getting off on his torture, his death. John had just enough strength to be furious about it. Hot, angry tears soaked the blindfold over his eyes and his struggles renewed, taking all he had left, spending all the oxygen left in his starved body if for no other reason than to disrupt the monsters rhythm. John always knew his father would kill him. But he could come when John was gone, and not a second before.

 

Sherlock squeezed John’ s throat even tighter, both hands, fingers lacing around the strong line of John’s neck. He watched as John’s face turned pink, then red, then the most beautiful shade of purple. His chaotic mind was focused on two things and two things only; part of his mind, a small part but the only clear part left, was listening for anything that sounded like “Hudson” and watching John’s mouth for the shape that word would make. But the majority of Sherlock brain was all _JohnJohnJohn-so beautiful-myJohn-mine-all mine-MYJohn._

It was the trust that had Sherlock’s balls drawn tight and his breath coming hard. The trust John had for him to wear a blindfold and let him wrap his hands around his throat, squeezing until the next breath was completely up to Sherlock as to when and if it would come. It was that trust, that love that they shared that made the raised welts and red skin so breathtakingly beautiful. 

Hearing John beg told the part of Sherlock’s brain that always looked out for John that John was likely so hard it hurt worse than anything else, and if Sherlock was a good lover, and he often tried to be, he would at the very least tease him. The idea of his hands wrapped tightly around the two most vulnerable parts of John’s body, and John trusting him to do it, had Sherlock’s cock throbbing so hard he couldn’t help but rut against John’s stomach.

Switching positions, Sherlock released Johns throat, relishing in seeing the marks of his own hands imprinted on his lover’s skin, before leaning in with his forearm. He pressed hard against John’s neck, forcing him back into the hard wood of the chair. John’s struggles waned for a moment before revamping with more vigor and that same angry grimace John wore when everything hurt so beautifully. Sherlock stroked his own cock for a few moments, staring, completely enraptured, at the sight of his lover. Straining beneath him, red-faced, gasping, hands clenching and unclenching on the side of the chair, his entire body wet with sweat. 

Sherlock was too close, John was too perfect, and Sherlock owed him some relief. 

Sherlock slid his hands slowly down John’s abdomen, eyes glued to his face, watching as John grimaced and shuddered, turning his face away as far as Sherlock would allow it, too wrapped up in his desire.

But when Sherlock’s hand connected with John’s groin, everything came to a screeching halt. 

Where Sherlock had expected to find John’s long, hot, engorged member, he only found only a flaccid cock and a cold sweat. Sherlock looked down; shock and concern clear on his face. But his vision only confirmed what his hand had told him. 

“John?” he said, releasing the pressure on John’s windpipe. He drew in a long shuddering breath. His whole body was shaking, sweat dripping down his face as he twisted as far away from Sherlock as he could manage. “John?” he said again more urgently, taking his arm completely away from his throat. He tore the blindfold from John’s face, finding his eyes wide and unfocused before they squeezed tightly shut, hot tears spilling out onto purple cheeks. Sherlock reached for his lover, confused and frightened at his reaction. But the second his palm brushed his sweaty, clammy cheek, John reared away from him, eyes wide and chest heaving.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” He shouted, his voice rough and wheezing, limbs tearing so violently at their bonds the skin was red and broken. Sherlock watched with fear in his eyes as John looked right through him, like he didn’t recognize him at all. It was the strangled cry that tore from John’s throat as he flailed hard against the ties holding him that brought Sherlock back into action. 

Fighting the rising nausea at seeing what he’d done, Sherlock began attacking his knots, his long fingers stuttering with the force of their shaking. He’d finally done it, finally ruined everything. He didn’t know when it had happened, but John had stopped playing a long time ago. The rest had just been torture for him. And Sherlock had been getting off on it. He nearly retched again. 

“Shh, John, it’s okay, everything’s okay, I’m so sorry, it’s fine now,” Sherlock said, his voice almost as rough and ragged as John’s he quickly loosed the last knot holding John to the chair. Once freed, John brought his legs up and curled into a tight ball in the seat of the chair, no longer crying but chest still heaving with the force of his breath. His eyes searched the room widely, looking for something Sherlock could not see.

“John?” Sherlock asked, kneeling in front of the man, reaching carefully out with one hand. “John, tell me what happened.” When his hand came down on his forearm, John jerked away. Sherlock let him, squashing the hurt that rose up in his throat in favor of wallowing in the horror of what he’d brought this beautiful man to. He tried again, this time only brushing his fingers across the back of John’s hand where it was clenched protectively around his knee. “John, please, I don’t understand,” Sherlock was unable to keep the desperate begging from his tone. He curled his fingers around John’s, pulling his hand to him. He smeared kisses across his knuckles, mumbling into the skin; “John, John, I’m so sorry. I had no idea, I was watching for the safeword, I was, I swear to you. John, I’m so sorry, please, forgive me.”

After several minutes, John’s ragged breathing evened out and his eyes refocused as he was snapped back to reality.

“Sherlock?” He asked, his voice reedy and weak.

“John, I'm so sorry, I don’t understand, I didn’t know, I'm sorry, I would’ve stopped,” Sherlock continued to pour his words onto the clammy skin of John’s hand and the red, angry skin of his wrist. John merely shuddered, sliding bonelessly out of the chair and down into Sherlock’s arms, clutching him tightly, terrified he’d disappear again. 

Sherlock held him, rocking him gently, and he couldn’t for the life of him decide who was shaking harder. Until he felt John’s body go lax in his arms as he passed out and Sherlock found it was most definitely he who was shaking like an earthquake. He was a wreck. He had taken something so beautiful and so perfect and brought it to tears. He didn’t deserve a man like John Watson.

Sherlock pulled himself together enough to tend John’s wounds and put him to bed, boxing up all evidence of their previous activities and packing it away in the unused room upstairs. He then curled up in the chair across the bedroom and waited for his lover to wake up and tell him what he had done so terribly wrong.

 

 

When John opened his eyes, he found he was back in his bed, still naked but tucked in tightly under far too many blankets. His whole body burned, but when he shifted he could feel the slide of ointment on his bruises and the scrape of bandages on his cuts. He reached for Sherlock, who always spelt curled into his side. But the familiar heat was absent, and the cold it left settled in John’s stomach. _‘Oh,’_ he thought. Now he remembered. John pushed himself painfully up to his elbows as he caught sight of a familiar shadow curled in the corner. 

“Sherlock,” he called, his voice hoarse and his throat sore, and the man lifted his head from his knees, turning to look at John with a face so ashen and drawn, it made John hurt that much more.

“John,” he whispered, arms tightening around his knees, hugging himself as he looked at John with lost, scared eyes. “John, what happened?” It was then that the doctor realized that as horrible as that had been for him, and as badly as he could still feel that fear shaking through his entire body, Sherlock had gotten a scare just as bad. He couldn’t imagine how horrible he would feel if he ever saw Sherlock brought to terrified tears at his actions. John still felt on edge and desperate; he assumed Sherlock felt the same. A tremor rippled through John’s frame. He saw a sympathetic shiver roll through Sherlock. Even though he vaguely remembered flinching away from the man only hours before, John knew in that moment that only being held by his lover would help him get through the conversation he knew they’d have to have.

“Sherlock, come here,” John said.

The detective unfolded his legs from the chair he was perched in, and slowly crossed the room to the side of the bed, sinking to his knees by John’s head. “John, I am so sorry,” Sherlock began, but John raised a hand to cut him off.

“Get in bed,” John said, the scratchiness of his voice weakening the command. Sherlock looked at him with such sorrow it nearly broke John’s heart.

“No, John, I can’t, I hurt you,” Sherlock said, his voice so quiet it barely reached his lover’s ears. “I don’t understand, John, and I am so sorry.”

“Shh, Sherlock, it’s okay,” John said, reaching out to cup his cheek. “I know that was scary,” John paused to clear his throat. “Scary for both of us,” Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut, leaning into John’s palm, hands fisted in the bed coverings hanging over the side. “Get in bed and I’ll explain it, yeah?”

 Sherlock only shook his head, sitting back heavily on his heels, head hanging low and limp on his elegant neck. John sighed heavily, wincing as it grated his throat.

“Fine then,” John said, gathering up the blankets. “I’ll come to you.” And with that he yanked the all blankets free and rolled to the ground next to Sherlock, wrapping his hands around the taller man and pulling him into his nest of blankets. Sherlock sagged into John’s arms, selfishly taking the comfort he knew he should be giving.

“John, what happened?” Sherlock asked, his voice sounding very young and frightened. John sighed.

“You know by dad used to beat me,” John began, Sherlock nodding his curly head into his shoulder as he wrapped his arms securely around him, minding the bruises, but holding John close the way he really needed to be held. “He used to choke me, too,” John said, his voice quiet, eyes closed tightly. He stayed present by stroking his hands through Sherlock’s hair and down his back. “He’d hold me down against the floor by my throat and lean into me, so I couldn’t move. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, couldn’t fight him at all.” John took a breath, another shudder racking the soldier’s body. “And he’d tell me what he’d do to me if I crossed him again. Awful things.”

“What kinds of things?” Sherlock asked quietly, his hands rubbing gentle circles into the unmarked skin of John’s hip.

“He’d threaten to hurt me,” John said, hesitant to call it for what it really was.

“Hurt you? John, he hurt you all the time,” Sherlock insisted, finding a safe spot on his arm to kiss.

“He’d threaten to rape me,” John confessed, eyes squeezed shut. Sherlock stilled next to him, freezing in the space of a second.

“Did he?” came the quiet, barely there and oh so frightened response.

“No, never. He never touched me, not like that,” John said, hands back to rubbing about Sherlock’s back comfortingly. He felt the brunette’s relieved exhalation all the way across his chest. The body-warmed air helped to sooth his welts and bruises. “But hearing him say it, that was enough for it to feel real.” Sherlock raised his head, pressing kisses to the purple bruises surrounding John’s neck. John took a shuddering breath at the contact, pulling the taller man tighter against him.

 “I didn’t know it still bothered me until—” John broke off, not needing to finish that sentence.

“John, I am so sorry,” Sherlock said again, his legs coming to wrap around John, holding his red and bruised body as tightly and carefully as he could.

“I know, love, I know.” John pressed a kiss into his hair. “You didn’t know that would happen. _I_ did know that would happen. But it’s okay now. We’ll be okay, we’ll be fine.”

“I swear, I’ll never hurt you again,” Sherlock insisted suddenly, head flying up, meeting John’s eyes frantically. “What we’ve been doing, it’s too dangerous, it was only a matter of time, with your history and me being like I am—”

“Shh, it’s okay,” John said, smiling tightly, cradling his lover’s bony hands in his own. “You’re right, I don’t think I’ll be able to handle that for a bit. But not forever. We can still do other things until we’re ready again. Go back to how we started all this” John pressed a kiss to a warm, pale forehead. Sherlock watched him hesitantly.

“If… you’ll have me,” Sherlock said slowly, his features schooled so as to not betray his hopefulness. But John saw it all, as John always did.

“Sherlock, that wasn’t your fault.” Glowing verdigris eyes looked away and John grabbed his lover’s jaw to force them back to his. “I didn’t safeword. By the time I wanted to, I was too far gone to remember I could. There was no way you could’ve known what was going on in my head.” Sherlock opened his mouth to protest but John silenced him with a firm but worn look. “You didn’t have enough data. There was no way you could’ve known.”

“But now I do, and it makes it all so, so,” Sherlock searched for the word, face wound up in disgust with himself. “So vile!” he said finally, spitting the word out, arms tightening around John. “That you thought I was him, that I was still doing what I was doing, still _enjoying_ what was no less than torture for you!” Sherlock’s body shook as he fought another retch. 

“Sherlock, stop that right now.” John said forcefully. “There’s no fixing it now. And there will be no repeating it later. Can we please stop worrying about it?” John could tell that Sherlock wouldn’t stop thinking about it all night, but he nodded anyway. 

The two men worked to gather all the blankets back up and settled together on the bed. With the covers pulled up over both their heads and their arms and legs completely entwined, even where it made John’s skin pull tightly under plasters, the two slowly fell asleep, taking long deep breaths straight from the others mouth.

John would shudder against Sherlock’s narrow chest, flash backs painting the inside of his eyelids. Sherlock tightened his arms carefully around his shoulders. Sherlock would occasionally seize up, fighting the nausea at the thought of what he’d been doing while John was crying. John would only coo quietly and stroke a calloused hand over pale ribs. 

It took them hours to fall asleep; both tormented by their respective thoughts. But both of them did eventually fall asleep; comforted by, and comforting each other. In this way, they fit completely. They knew what the other needed and when. And while the communication was flawed sometimes, and they both had pasts wrought with red flags, they made it work the same way they made it through the night. 

By holding tight to the other. 

And refusing to let go.


End file.
